


It Is Always

by Kestrel337



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 10:35:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3974926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestrel337/pseuds/Kestrel337
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Endings. Transitions. New Beginnings.</p><p>The game is never over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Is Always

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gardnerhill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/gifts).



There was no reason to be here today. The flat had been stripped and looked embarrassed in its nudity. Sherlock could almost see the blurring, smudges delineating ‘before’ and ‘after’. He’d tried to avoid it, hiring removers and cleaners and booking a palatial suite for the weekend. But then Raz had called to say he needed signatures, and John had leapt at the chance to take one final walk through. The windows were smaller, more exposed, without the elegant (outdated) draperies. Even without their concealing folds, the windows offered a better prospect than staring at faded wallpaper. A casual watcher would say life on Baker Street was unchanged, but Sherlock’s observations had never been casual. It was down to details, and nobody did details better than a Holmes. The young lady running down the pavement: Jeans, sensible shoes, hair in a hasty ponytail. The turquoise top belonged to the sandwich shop two blocks down, that had forced Speedy’s out of business. The heavy-set brunette emerging from a cab, with troubled eyes and a grim pinch to her mouth. Not someone bringing a case, though there was a love-affair gone wrong. Fiona, still dutifully visiting her non-custodial father, years after Mrs Turner’s ‘married ones’ gave up on wedded bliss. Baker Street had moved on. And here, in the upstairs flat: Sherlock’s protege, a slender, dark-haired man in his late 30s, hiding a checkered past behind a well-tailored suit and a confident manner. A native ability to spot unsavory types had kept him alive on the streets, and Sherlock had helped him hone and sharpen that skill. Which he’d then chosen to waste utterly, by going into property management and using it to vet potential renters. 

“Sherlock. Are you even listening to me?” 

“Of course, Raz. Please continue.” He winced a bit as, turning away from the window, he caught sight of his own reflection. The grey day made his hair appear more ‘leaded’ than ‘silvering’. 

“Right. So, the demolition team will start tomorrow, and rebuild starts the following week. Should have the place ready to rent out by late July or early August.”

“So, September, then.” 

“Yeah, I reckon.” They shared a grin, and Raz handed over a clipboard. “Final cost estimate is at the bottom, there. Seems fair, although I’d expect it to go about ten percent over.” 

Sherlock nodded indifferently, scribbled his signature across the bottom of the page and handed the board back as the sitting room door opened and John came in. 

“Ready to go?” 

“I will be when you give me the bag, yes.” Sherlock reached for the black messenger bag slung over John’s shoulder, and John surrendered it with a sigh. "You should've just left it in the car." 

“It’s just my laptop, Sherlock. I’m not going to fall down the stairs because you let me carry my laptop.” 

“No. You’re not.” He took advantage of John’s shaking Raz’s hand, and started down the staircase first. John was doing better, had been handling stairs with relative ease for several weeks, but the cane could still slip or tangle in John’s feet, sending him back to enforced immobility. Eight weeks had been more than enough of that.

In the car, John shot Sherlock a look before he eased their SUV into the traffic flow. “I know what you were doing, there, love. I only let you get away with it because it’s the last time. No stairs at the cottage.”

“We’ll probably have to go back and do inspections, before we start renting the flats.” His voice was low, barely audible as he stared at the passing street. A few drops of rain smacked heavily against the windscreen. 

“Could be. Or we could just do it through Raz, like all the other property owners.” 

Sherlock didn’t bother to answer that, just watched out the window as familiar landmarks appeared and fell away, shrouded and leached of color by the misty afternoon. John would probably write something about London weeping for the departure of her genius locus, or some other absurdity, that Sherlock knew better than to believe. London wasn’t going to miss him; a few days, a week at the most, and London would never know he’d been here. Even the few remaining members of the network would move on. Thus far, his frequent ‘investments’ had been enough to keep them around, but London wouldn’t be worth the hostility without his cash.

“Mrs Hudson seems to be enjoying Italy,” John tried to draw his attention.

“Clearly. I’m surprised she had time to send a postcard.” He clenched his jaw, too late to stop the acrimonious words spilling free, but John just gave him a sideways _look_ and drove on in silence. Patient John, putting up with a sulky husband so very often. He’d been looking forward to this, and Sherlock oughtn’t to be spoiling it with his melancholia. He needed to make an effort. “I heard from Agatha yest...John, you’ve missed our turning.”

“Thought we’d make a quick stop first. It’s not far out of the way, and the cottage will still be there.” 

“Another one? What’s left? We’ve been to Battersea. We drove into Belgrave Square last week. Yesterday we went to the museum.” And John had nearly worn himself out with all the walking.

Sherlock didn’t figure out their destination until John pulled into the car park and shut down the engine. “Roland Kerr Further Education College. It seemed right, somehow, saving it for today.” 

The formerly grandiose buildings looked tired now, years of grime and weathering dismal under the cloudy sky. The door to one building had been painted an awkward shade of puce, probably so the idiots who attended this ‘further education college’ could tell them apart. 

John looked a bit dismayed, and Sherlock was overcome with a desperate need to see him smile. 

“I trust you haven’t scheduled a side-trip to Dartmoor. I hate to think what has become of the keyed cross.” 

John chuckled, but shook his head. “Crossed Keys, genius. It was called the Crossed Keys. And I think you’d be surprised; places like that don’t change so much. I mean, not like London, you know. There’s forever something different to see in the big cities. Even the things that’ve been there for centuries, there’s always little changes.”

How could John still surprise him, so many years later? He was absolutely correct, of course. Timelessness was a falsehood. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d notice.” 

“Git. Who taught me?” The rain began falling in earnest, now, running down the windscreen and distorting the view. John reached into the back seat and pulled out the mismatched mugs that had graced their kitchen table for most of the past twenty years, along with a thermos. “It’s just tea, since I’ll be driving. But. I thought. Maybe...a farewell toast? Goodbye to London?” 

“Sentimental nonsense.” But Sherlock took the mug he was handed, allowed John to tap the edge with his own, and sipped the fragrant brew. “Isn’t that Mrs Hudson’s old thermos?” 

“Yeah. She said something about handsome waiters and told me to keep it. You ever going to tell her who owns the building? I feel like we’ve been lying to her.” It was an old argument, one Sherlock had thought abandoned some time back.

“The buildings are owned by Doyle Property Holdings. It’s not my fault if she and Mrs Turner didn’t ask about its stakeholders.” 

“No. Nor mine, either. Imagine my surprise when I learned I was one of them. And that the president of the company was your cousin.” Who had, immediately upon the previous landladies relocating to Italy, signed over his own interest in the property to Sherlock and John. And then, before they’d had a chance to discuss renting 221A, or the commercial space Speedy’s had left vacant, there’d been a case, and a chase, and the terrifying _crunch_ of a cricket bat connecting with John’s leg. 

Surgeries, weeks in traction, more surgeries, physio. John defied everyone’s expectations yet again, walking out of the hospital eight weeks later, but the limp was no longer psychosomatic and the cane couldn’t be ‘forgotten’ at Angelo’s to put everything right.

There’d been a few more cases, John sifting through internet searches and newspaper archives, making calls and sending e-mails. Ten hateful months of Sherlock doing the legwork on his own. Then a discussion, a decision, a purchase. And then the announcement, the exclamations and questions and advice, and one last party at Baker Street. Game over. 

“I suppose you packed that horrible scrapbook.” 

“I packed several horrible scrapbooks. They can stay on my bookshelf, the one with the doors, and you’ll never need to look at them.” John gestured for Sherlock to stow the mugs, and began turning the car around. “Or did you mean the lovely album that the Lestrade-Hoopers gave us? It’s a nice memento, Sherlock, and I’m glad to have it even if you aren’t. I had no idea Molly and Greg had saved all those articles.”

Sherlock couldn’t think of a response to that, so he just grunted and settled back in his seat, watching the wet landscape as it slid away into the past. He felt John’s eyes on him more than once in the long silence, concern and speculation lying heavy between them, but was unable to think of anything to say until they’d driven through Eastbourne and arrived at the cottage. 

“I talked to Agatha yesterday. She’ll be bringing the bees around next week. Just one nucleus, but it’s possible I could lure a swarm later. And I ordered a few more books.” He led the way down the path, checking the gardens and slowing to accommodate John’s slower gait. The early bloomers, daffodils and flowering cherry, were already opening, and his bees would have plenty more to choose from in just a couple of weeks. 

Beyond the garden, the cottage tucked cozily into a little hollow, sheltered on two sides by hills, and with a view of the sea on the third. John had talked of walking down to the shore on the fine days, of picnics and the sound of waves. Sherlock had inquired discreetly with the physiotherapist, and been assured that it was a possibility, provided they kept to a sensible pace. 

The door swung smoothly open, and John, predictably, went immediately to the kettle. He checked the fridge, grinning when he found it fully stocked as they’d requested, and took out a jug of milk.

Sherlock’s eye was caught by a parcel sitting to one side of the ghastly silk flowers in the center of the tiny table. “My books are here.” 

There were knives in the cutlery drawer, and John didn’t say anything when Sherlock snatched one up to slit the tape. Pulling the flaps apart, he reached in and pulled out the first volume. Distracted by the sight of John stretching to reach the mugs- torn between admiring the strong lines of his back and worrying that he’d overextend his balance- he opened the cover without looking at it, and was momentarily confused when he turned back to the title page.

 ** _The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes_**  
The author was listed as _John H. Watson-Holmes_

“John?” It was all he could manage, just that. His husband’s name, summing up all the questions he didn’t know how to voice. He held up the book.

“Yeah? Oh. OH! They came!” He limped quickly to the table and pulled another copy from the box, ran his hand over the image of a deerstalker on the cover. “I didn’t expect them for another week, at least. Dorothy must’ve rushed it through.” 

“Dorothy?” Sherlock thought he did an admirable job keeping his voice level, even as he gave in to a sudden need to sink onto the closest chair.

“Yeah. Dorothy Stout. My editor.”

“Henry Knight’s wife?”

“Yes. And also my editor. See, Henry told her about Baskerville. And...um...well, the blog. She read it, and talked to me, said she thought it’d make a good book. Saleable.”

“She thought people would buy a book about deductive reasoning and case reports?”

“Nope. She thought people would buy a book about _you_. People read my blog because they want to know about Sherlock Holmes. They come for the cases, sure, but that’s not the important part. What makes them comment, and come back to read more, is you. If all they wanted was ‘who did what to whom’, they’d just read the newspaper. They want to know why, and how _you_ could tell, and how _you_ solved it. So that’s what I wrote: a book about a detective.” 

“John. How? You’re terrible at secrets. You cannot lie, not to me. How did I not know?” 

“Dorothy convinced me to start it while I was in hospital. Honestly, I thought it was just...I don’t know, sympathy, maybe. Give the poor bedridden guy something to think about. By the time I figured out she was serious, you were racing around London trying to prove nothing had changed. Research aside, I had a fair bit of time on my hands.” He set the book down with a lingering caress and let his eyes rest on Sherlock’s. “I think I knew the game was over all along, even though we both tried to pretend. So. You know. This way, it’s not. Not ever. It’s all right here.” John shrugged self-consciously, and turned to finish making their tea. 

Sherlock stared after him, then looked back at the book. Smooth, glossy covers, a simple line drawing of a deerstalker. His name, and John’s, in elegant script. The shelves lining one wall of the sitting room had been filled with their books on a recent visit; medical and forensics texts sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, John’s paperbacks tucked out of sight in the cupboards below. But there was an empty space, there on the middle shelf, next to the skull. Sherlock set the book there, leaned it against the side of the shelf, stepped back. Shook his head, and tried laying it down, spine out, angled as if it had been casually set down without concern for appearance. He shook his head again, stood it up behind the skull, front cover facing the room. No. Too much like a shop window. He took it up and settled it on the coffee table, next to the newspaper. Yes. That was good; visible, accessible. Likely to draw the eye, the curious hand. A few quick steps, and he was back at the table, where he couldn’t resist opening the copy John had set down. Hmm, title page, very nice, tasteful font. Dedication. Predictable, John, really. He schooled his face against the broad grin that kept breaking out, and settled down to read. 

_In 2010 I found myself in London…_


End file.
